a middle ground between Lying and Oversharing when someone asks how you’re doing and you’re doing bad

A lot of people find it really awkward to be asked how they are doing when how they are doing is Bad. They know the “right” answer is “good, thanks!” but that is Lying and some people really hate Lying. Here are some scripts I use to walk the line between Lying and Overshare.

The basic script is, “Thank you for asking. I’m \[brief, true but not terribly in-depth statement on mood state\], but I’ve been doing \[something positive you have attempted to address the previous situation\] about it. How are you doing?”

A few examples:

“Thank you for asking. I’ve been kind of depressed lately, but I’ve been playing a really cool game that just came out and that’s cheering me up a little. How are you doing?”

“Thank you for asking. I haven’t been sleeping well recently, but I’m hoping if I stick with the melatonin and keeping my electronics out of the bedroom, it will get easier over time. How are you doing?”

“Thank you for asking. Things have been a little rough, but I’ve been working out more to see if it improves my mood. How are you doing?”

You can be as vague as you want. “Things have been pretty hard lately” is totally fine here. I suggest tailoring your level of specificity to the kind of relationship you have. A coworker = extremely vague. A friend = can be more specific, even if you are trying to keep it simple because you don’t want to dump all your shit on them at this moment.

Your “what am I doing about it” does not have to be impressive. It doesn’t have to be exercise and meditation. You can admit you’re distracting yourself with TV and video games as long as you project an air of “this is normal coping and I’m not ashamed of it.”

(The one exception here is drugs. Saying that you are dealing with badness by getting shitfaced or stoned out of your mind every night is usually perceived as oversharing unless you know the person you’re talking to is also a huge drinker or stoner, or you’re very close.)

When I am in this situation, usually what I’m trying to project is, “I’m having some troubles, but I’m still fundamentally a person who has her shit together, and you don’t have to be worried about me.”

(If you are in a situation where what you need to communicate to someone is “You SHOULD be EXTREMELY worried about me!” Disregard this. That calls for a different script. You should not be worried about oversharing at that point.)